Introducing VF.com's New Film Critic, with Reviews of Melancholia and J.Edgar

Paul Mazursky is an Academy Award™ nominated screenwriter and producer, as well as a prolific actor and director. His greatest hits as a writer/director include Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, and Next Stop, Greenwich Village. As an actor, he’s appeared in everything from Curb Your Enthusiasm to Carlito’s Way. *Beginning today, the venerable quadruple threat will train his talents, and insider’s eye, on yet another much-buzzed-about project:*Vanity Fair’s new movie review series.

Do Critics Matter?

In 1969, I experienced my first bizarre encounter with critics. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, the first film I directed and co-wrote, opened the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. It starred Natalie Wood, Elliot Gould, Robert Culp, and Dyan Cannon, who in real life had recently split up with Cary Grant. The audience loved the movie. I was flying high. We moved to a ballroom for the after-party. People hugged me, kissed me, looked at me differently. I was a hit! I toasted myself with champagne. I was in egomania heaven.

At about 11 p.m. I saw Jack Atlas, the Columbia Pictures P.R. man, walking toward me with a newspaper under his arm and a sour expression on his face. I asked Jack if he was sick.

“We were bombed in the Times,” Jack said. “Canby didn’t like the picture.”

Vincent Canby was the paper’s chief film critic, just promoted to the role. He went on to review more than a thousand movies at the paper—a legend, although I didn’t know it then. I felt like throwing up. I grabbed The New York Times from Jack and read the review. Bombsville! My euphoria was gone; I was instantly depressed. I was a failure. I should’ve been a shoe salesman. I wanted to call my therapist, but I didn’t have one. So my wife (who says she never reads reviews) and I went to a hotel and I tried to sleep. At about eight a.m. the next morning, the phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Is this Paul Mazursky?”

“Yeah” “This is Pauline Kael. I read Vincent’s review. He’s wrong.

I loved your movie and so do all the other critics I’ve spoken to. I just wanted you to know that.”

I felt like crying tears of joy. I was back in auteursville.

So, do critics matter? It depends on to whom. To the young audience? I’m not sure they even read reviews, in the era of RottenTomatoes.com. Does it matter to the over-45s? Sure, if they want culture and social problems—and don’t mind a little sex and violence. I’d like to believe they want to be moved to tears by the end of a great film.

Do reviews matter to the studios? Sure. They’ll be happy with a rave. But they’re capable of manufacturing a full-page ad with blockbuster quotes from Grade C critics.

And what about the filmmakers? Woody Allen, I’m told, doesn’t read reviews. Fellini told me he didn’t care much about the press. But most of the Hollywood crowd including moi, reads reviews voraciously. We pick up the trades, Hollywood Reporter and Variety, The New York Times, the L.A. *Times, The New Yorker,*Newsweek, and Time. Not to mention *The Wall Street Journal.*When reading reviews of my own work, there was usually enough variety to find some good and some bad: a couple of dynamite raves and several sadistic grenades. I dismissed the latter. He was probably drunk, I’d reason. Or: Naturally, he’s a closet Nazi. But I read, and reread, the raves and even the tepid approvals. In other words, I confess, reviews matter to me.

So as of this piece, I am now a critic. Oy vey! I feel a huge responsibility. I know I must be honest. If the movie is great, good. If it stinks, sorry. If it’s a real turkey, I won’t bother to review it. So, how to rate? A simple thumbs up or down? To late for that. On a scale from 1 to 10, etc.? Silly. Four stars? It's been done. So here’s what I’ll do: review the film with simplicity, brevity, depth, and passion, and maybe a little wit for good luck.

So here it goes . . .

By Christian Geisnæs.

Melancholia

I’m writing this on a Monday morning. Last night I saw Lars von Trier’s film. I had problems with some of the movie, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I slept badly. Truth be known, I think I had an attack of melancholia. Wikipedia says this is defined as “sadness, moroseness, saturnine.”

This bizarre fantasy is about the impending end of the Earth. A planet, fittingly named Melancholia, is hurtling toward our planet. The images are startling, and the camera work by cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro is gorgeous. The acting is perfect. Kirsten Dunst is wonderful as an oh-so-sad bride-to-be, Justine. On the night of her nuptials, she suffers a nervous breakdown, and the sumptuous wedding party of 50 or so wealthy Danes is ruined. Justine’s sister, Claire (a touching Charlotte Gainsbourg), is the strong sister in part one, but she succumbs to her own melancholia in part two. Keifer Sutherland is Claire’s husband, an amateur astronomer who owns a huge telescope. Every now and then we see a close-up of the planet looming larger and larger. They are unforgettable images.

So what’s my problem with this completely unique film? After all, it has spectacular music by Richard Wagner (including the prelude to Tristan and Isolde that I used in Blume in Love). It is rapturously romantic and downright depressing at the same time—a rare feat.

But sometimes it’s simply too tough to decipher. There are long stretches of L.S.D.-like images shimmering, and colored figures with dialogue and music heard behind the black screen. At one point, I actually thought the film broke, and became angry and impatient. Not the intended emotional response of most directors, but that could be what von Trier wants. The Danish journalist Nils Thorson recently asked the director what he felt about the world’s coming to an end. “If it could happen in an instant,” he replied, “the idea appeals to me”… Whew! Von Trier has suffered a great depression for years. Melancholia is apparently his way of dealing with it.

I plan on seeing this film again. The image of the totally nude Kirsten Dunst lying on the green grass of the villa at night and staring up at the sky is incredibly moving . . . and sexy. You may have problems with the film. It may shake you out of your lethargy.

You might even get melancholia yourself, and that just might make Lars von Trier a happy man.

Clint Eastwood’s newest film is a serious attempt at deconstructing the strange life of J. Edgar Hoover. The script takes us back from the last days of his life to his early days when he is becoming the feared, angry, and oh-so dynamic fellow we remember him as today.

Was he gay? Was his close relationship with his deputy, Clyde Tolson (well played by Armie Hammer), ever physical? Did they make love or just hold hands? Why did Hoover never marry? Did he actually do all the daring arrests he claimed? Eastwood tries to answer all these questions. But in doing so, too often he left me puzzled.

After Tolson has a stroke, he urges Hoover to tell the truth on at least one account: “You never made those arrests.” But in the film, we see Hoover make the arrests. Is Hoover an unreliable narrator? Or are we unreliable viewers?

For me, the gay stuff was a bit too coy; the cross-dressing is barely in the picture. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more fun. Mr. DiCaprio does some fine work, to be sure, and his hair and makeup as the older Hoover are excellent. But the script has him doing scene after scene in exactly the same manner: they’re mostly just clipped, angry speeches to the Congress to get more funds for the F.B.I.

We break from all that, suddenly, out of nowhere, to learn that Hoover is a stutterer and his overprotective mother, played by Judi Dench, was a bossy broad who humiliated him and relentlessly made him repeat phrases that he flubbed. We also learn that in nicer times, she taught him how to dance. That particular scene could have been sexier and funnier. So could the whole movie. It almost gets there when Hoover admits to his mother he might be marrying Dorothy Lamour, the sultry film actress. He even admits to having a physical relationship with Lamour, but not while he’s still dancing with his mother. Wouldn’t that have been a more titillating tête-à-tête?

Interspersed are quite a few clips from old Warner Bros. gangster films with Jimmy Cagney. They provide juicy, energetic violence and humor that make one realize how much of that kind of fun is lacking from J. Edgar. Eastwood’s film is all just a bit too earnest.

It should be noted that Tom Stern’s photography is first rate—he uses a suggestion of color with a feeling of black and white. Eastwood, whom I greatly admire, could have hired a great composer to complement the cinematography. A great score would have made us soar with delight—rather than making us feel as though we’re riding a slow elevator.

As critical as this review may sound, I would tell you to see the picture. In these days of silly movies, it’s important to see the adult work. And J. Edgar is an adult film made by serious people.